Monday, December 30, 2013

To Play


It occurred to me this morning that there is nothing Caleb has to do.

  There are plenty of things he can do, most of them playing with various toys that litter our every room and hallway. He has a seemingly infinite number of choices of toys he can play with, but he doesn't have to play. If he does choose to do so, he can do so unencumbered by the thought that there is something else he needs to be doing. His every need is met by Rachel and me, so there is no anxiousness for food or clothing or shelter. He can simply play.

  Now, there are times when he chooses not to play. There are times when he wants to do something he is not allowed to do. There are times he throws tantrums because he is tired or simply frustrated. But it's never because there is some outside force pressuring him to do things a certain way. It's only when he presses up against the boundaries that he opts to fuss rather than play. It was amazing to me this morning, watching him play. He plays all day, every day. His energy is wholly devoted to play. How freeing that must be.

  Can you imagine?

  I'm sure that I was the same way at some point, carefree and playful. The weight of the world feels heavy at times, especially since I am one of those individuals who chooses to carry more than my fair share. It's not easy holding the world up. What it must be like to recapture that vision of youth, that sense of freedom, the delight in play.

  I think this must be what heaven is like--the freedom to roam and play, to bask in the light of God's love, to rejoice in freedom and let those weights bound away, back to where they belong, in far better hands than mine. For a moment, for a brief moment this morning, I was overwhelmed by the freedom of the child.

  As my therapist said, "Let Caleb teach you. He hasn't been messed up yet."

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Sermon for December 29, 2013

Luke 2:8-20

  8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”
  13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” 15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”
  16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

**************************


*********************************

I’ll say this:  I like James Bond movies.  I always have.  In college, TBS used to do ‘7 days of 007’, which meant they would start showing James Bond movies around 5 in the afternoon and show them until around 4 in the morning.  And yes, I’d try and watch them all.  Recently, Skyfall ended up on Netflix, and I watched it twice in two days, then spent the next week looking for another excuse to watch it.  I’m a big James Bond fan.
Every James Bond movie pits the smarts and skill of James Bond up against some new and clever villain.  The plots are always different, and yet they all bear the same theme—Bond always comes up against the villain in the end, and they spent a lot of time talking and a little time fighting, and James Bond always wins.
There’s another element to every movie, though.  It’s not one that is often noticed, but it plays an important role:  henchmen. 
The villain is always surrounded by a small crowd of well-armed men who are never highly valued by the villain.  Each one has a mother, but the villain uses them as disposable shields to protect himself against James Bond.  They are thrown at the enemy, usually nameless folks who quickly meet their end.  They are disposable, men without personality who act as pawns in a movie focused on larger actors.
Most action movies that revolve around conflict have these characters, usually men who play a role but are lost within the larger plot developments.  We fail to pay much attention to them, and I have to imagine that the actors themselves aren’t that excited to be hired and then disposed of with so little attention.
But maybe we, as a society, are used to the idea of disposable people.  Maybe we’re a little too comfortable with the idea that some people matter more than others.  It’s certainly not a new idea—it’s been around as long as people have, it seems like.  Folks in Jesus’ day certainly viewed lepers and beggars in this way, as people not worthy of their full attention.  There are people like that in our society today—people we see but don’t really see, caring little about their personalities or futures.  They play a role in society, but we gloss over their presence in order to try and see the people and things that we believe really matter.
So it surprises us when we come across Scripture like we have today.  We’ve grown so accustomed to hearing about the shepherds that we fail to grasp its shock value.  Shepherds were not highly esteemed.  In fact, I doubt most people even considered them at all.  Remember when the sons of Jesse were paraded before Samuel to see if one was worthy to be king?  Where was David, the future king?  He was watching the sheep, and considered totally unworthy of being king.  The youngest, the least respected, was sent to watch the sheep. 
So imagine the shock when this story was told in the first century—people would have gasped to hear the news that God told the shepherds first.  The shock value would be the same if the President was coming to Chattanooga and the first people who heard the news were the ones waiting in line at the Community Kitchen.  Our first thought might be to wonder why folks who matter so little in society receive such news before others who wield more power and influence?  Shouldn’t those in the halls of power be the first to hear?
God is teaching us something.  2,000 years later, we still need to hear this lesson.
God is trying to teach us that people are defined in a radically different way in God’s kingdom.  From the very first moments of Christ’s life on earth, we learn that it’s not the most influential or the most powerful or the richest that are considered first.  There is an equality that frightens us, because it teaches us that what we’ve achieved in this world doesn’t garner us special attention in the eyes of God.  In the lives of the Pharisees, we see this fear played out—they are terrified that they don’t matter more because they’ve spent their lives trying to earn God’s love.  They can’t fathom a God who loves without condition or regard to what you’ve done. 
God is flattening society, and he’s teaching us that we need to love all people equally.  He’s trying to teach us to set down our preconceptions, to stop valuing people on the world’s standards.  God is trying to teach us that all people matter, not because of what they’ve done or how they look, but rather because they are hand-crafted in the image of God, uniquely valued by the creator of the universe and important enough to die on a cross to redeem.  People matter.  All of them.
If you hear nothing else from this sermon, I’d like for you to hear two points.
The first is that you matter to God. God made you, and God loves you.  God died on a cross to redeem you from sin and death, and God wants you to experience abundant and eternal life.  You are more valuable to God than silver or gold.  No matter what the world tries to tell you, you matter.  No matter how messed up you may feel, you matter to God.  God’s love levels the playing field, no matter which end of it you feel like you’re standing on.  If you die penniless and homeless or in the richest estate in the ritziest zip code in America, God’s love for you will not change.
This leads us to the second point—what kind of statement is your life making about the lives of the people around you?  Are you willing to love people, all people, because God does?  Will you see your broken-hearted neighbor and the homeless man on the street and the stressed-out family in the mall and the wealthy banker downtown the same—as people valued and loved by God and worthy, therefore, of your love, time and attention?  Will you love and serve others as God loves and serves you?  Will you stop overlooking people and writing people off because God never does?
There are no disposable people in society, and I’m tired of living in a world where people are written off because of how they look or choices they have made.  They matter to God, and if they matter to God they should matter to us.  The question to us is how we are going to show that love to the them.
Let us pray 

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

2013 Christmas Eve Meditation




****************************

When Rachel was pregnant with Caleb, we may have documented every move that little boy made.  We always knew about how big he was and what was developing next.  There was a ‘fruit of the week’ chart that compared the size of the fetus to a fruit, so we knew whether he was the size of an apple or a kiwi.  We waited and waited, filled with anticipation, until he arrived in the world.  It was a fascinating process.
This summer, we were pregnant again.  It was a little different.  Every once in a while, I’d look at Rachel and ask, ‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’  I kept forgetting about this minor fact.  We were so caught up in work and Caleb and other facets of life that we kept overlooking the fact that there would soon be another little life in our midst.  In my defense, it was a little easier for me to forget that Rachel was pregnant, seeing as how my body wasn’t constantly changing.  When the delivery date came, we weren’t even close to ready. 
Honestly, the last 3.5 months have continued to leave me feeling exhausted.  Life is busy, now, and there are two little lives in our midst.  We collapse into bed at the end of the day and wonder how we’ll manage when Rachel goes back to work.  We haven’t put the Christmas tree up, and the stockings aren’t hung by the fire with care, and I don’t think St. Nicholas is going to pay a visit there.  We went out looking at Christmas lights last night, and our street is almost completely devoid of lights.  We’re all just worn out.
But just like you can’t go in and ask the doctor for a few more weeks until the baby comes (not that Rachel would have agreed to that anyway), you can’t go to the calendar and ask for a few more weeks until Christmas.  It’s coming, whether we are ready or not.
Thank God.
Imagine if Christmas waited until we were ready.  Imagine if we delayed the arrival of Christmas until everything was decorated and the cards were all sent and everything was baked and everything was at peace and on and on and on… we’d have Christmas in July, just in time to begin preparing for the next one.  It would be awful.
Imagine, too, if God had waited for Christmas until humans were ready.  Imagine if God told the world that he would send a Savior once we had cleaned up our act.  A Savior would come when we stopped killing one another and stopped mistreating each other and figured out how to play fair and be nice to each other and do all those things our parents told us to do when we were kids.  Imagine if God had told the world that a Savior would come when we finally stopped sinning and earned a visit from God.
We’d still be waiting.  We’d be waiting forever, and I don’t imagine there would be much hope for Christmas to come anytime soon.  As one bumper sticker read, When world peace finally arrives, imagine how quiet it will be until the looting begins.
Fortunately, God didn’t wait for us to get our act together.  Into the midst of our mess, into the midst of the chaos, Jesus Christ was born.  God descended to earth and took on humanity long before we were ready, long before we earned it.  We never could have deserved this, but God didn’t wait.  God took the initiative, and God reached down from heaven and took his place here on earth, a light that shines in the darkness.  God brought peace and hope and light and joy and life into our world, a world filled with darkness and chaos and violence and despair.  God came down because God didn’t want to wait for us to change the world—God wanted to transform the world in which we live.  God wanted to change us, here and now, and redeem the world.  God wanted to get to work on his project of redemption.
God came before we were ready.  God came before you were ready.  Before you could even think to ask, God knocked on the door of your heart and invited you into eternal and abundant life, starting now.
I know you’re not ready.  I know you don’t feel worthy.  None of us are.
But God comes down into our mess and delivers us through it.  It’s not about what we must do—it’s about what God has done.  Your choice is whether or not you will accept the invitation into eternal life and live transformed, loving your neighbor and serving the world. 
Christmas doesn’t wait until we’re ready.
Thanks be to God for God’s amazing grace that comes down to earth, a light shining in the darkness that shall never be extinguished.

Let us pray

Thursday, December 19, 2013

12/19 New Hope E-News

Announcements

Kids' Musical-- This Sunday!

Service of Healing & Wholeness-- For all who struggle with any and all of Christmas, we hold this service yearly as a place to come and let the hope of Christ and the love of the community surround us. December 22 @ 6pm.

Candlelight Christmas Eve Service of Lessons & Carols-- December 24, 7 pm.


Community Kitchen Spot
There are a lot of hungry and homeless children of God and the community needs some help feeding them. If you would like to help out, please bring the following items to church this Sunday & put them on the bookshelf.
Plastic Forks, Knives, Spoons
Dinner Napkins
Heavy Duty Sectional Dinner Plates


New Hope News

Sunday SchoolWe push forward through Matthew 8 this coming Sunday.

Sam's CardPlease check and see if you have the church Sam's Card. We are not sure who borrowed it last, but it has not been returned.



Pray For:
Lynn Meyer—please pray for Roger and Lynn as the eternal life into which she was baptized draws near. While death has been defeated and the veil separating us from God has been torn in two, there is still much pain and many tears as we grieve the wounds that death punches into our hearts and minds.

Norma Capone—
she will be in surgery throughout today, so please be in constant prayer for her

The O'Rear Family

Christine Dyer

For Jessica and so many others wrestling with cancer

For Christmas joy and hope and peace and wonder to wash over all of us in such powerful ways that we never forget what Christ our King has done for us


Links









Keith's Random Thoughts

Apparently, Christmas is next Wednesday. My tree still isn't up...
People ask if we're ready for Christmas. 
 Well, I suppose that depends on what you mean. By 'ready', do you mean that presents are bought and the house decorated? The answer would be no. We don't do many presents at Christmas, and decorations are still in their boxes in the basement. Who knew a second kid could make things that much more chaotic?
By 'ready', do you mean ready to receive a Savior into my life, a light for my darkness, hope for my despair?
I am ready in the sense that I need a Savior. I am a mess, and only my Lord and God can save me. I cannot save myself. The way that I act, the way that I think, the way that I live—it is all in need of redemption. In that sense, I am ready.
But if you were to ask whether or not I am ready to hand everything over to my Savior, the honest answer is no. I hold back from letting Christ be Lord of all of life. I stubbornly refuse to cede complete control to him, and I suffer as a result of that choice. The burdens that I choose to carry weigh me down, body and soul, and I am struggling forward, waiting for Christ to relieve me of these burdens, ignoring the fact that he has already made the offer and that I am carrying them of my own volition. I need to let him be Lord, but I am afraid of the unknown quality of my life if I were to let him reign supreme in my heart, mind, body & soul.
So if I'm honest, I'm not ready. My soul and heart are yearning to be set free from the prison of despair and sin, and Christ has unlocked the door and beckoned me out into the light. He has come into my cell and sat with me, and he has shown me the way to abundant life.
Yet, here I sit, in the darkness, stubbornly resisting, holding onto sin, trying to tunnel my own way out of my cell with my gnarled and bleeding hands. It's foolish. But it's what sin does to us—leaves us as fools wishing for meager gifts when Christ the Lord has set all of heaven before us as a gift, yet we somehow believe the lie that we are better off playing in the shadows.
Behold, the light has come!”







Text for this Tuesday, December 24
Luke 2:1-7 (ESV)

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. 6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.


New Hope on Facebook & Twitter
New Hope on iTunes

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Sermon on Luke 1:26-38 for December 15, 2013

Luke 1:26-38

  26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” 29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

  30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

  35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. 36 And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.


*********************

*********************

How many of you have ever watched someone try and do something that you were certain they were unqualified for? Have you ever sat back and known how it was all going to end, because you just knew they couldn't cut it? (How many of you are thinking that right now?) I grew up as a Cincinnati Bengals fan, and if you know anything about professional football, you know that the Cincinnati Bengals are in the middle of a 20 year rough patch. No franchise in football has gone longer without winning a playoff game. It's not been their millennium so far, but things are looking up, in their defense.
Well, growing up as a Bengals fan, they always got very good draft picks, because of how bad they were. And they would draft players that you could tell, from the very start, were simply over their head. They never had a chance. I felt sorry for a few of them—they just got swallowed up by the enormity of the task before them. This happened to coaches, too. The franchise just tended to chew up people and spit them out. Even from afar, you could tell they were in over their head.

Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like you were in over your head? Have you ever signed up for something, or perhaps had someone else sign you up for something, and you immediately felt like you were way, way out of your league?
When I played soccer as a kid, one year our coach decided it would be great to challenge us, so he signed us up to play a year over our current age bracket. He apparently felt we needed a challenge. Well, somewhere around the first game, in which we were losing by double digits, we realized that it was going to be a long season. We were in way over our heads.

Well, what if I told you that you had an integral part to play in the restoration and redemption of the entire universe? What if I told you that you were called to be a part of God's ongoing project of renewing the whole world? How would you feel? A bit under-qualified, perhaps?

If you answered yes, you're not alone. Throughout the Bible, we have instances where individuals chosen by God feel vastly inadequate to perform the tasks to which they are called. Moses argued with God when God revealed that he had chosen Moses to lead God's people out of slavery. Several people basically laughed at God when they found out they were going to have children at advanced ages. When God revealed himself to Isaiah, Isaiah assumed that he would die because of his unworthiness. Peter told Jesus to get away from him, because Peter felt unworthy to even be near Jesus. Paul considered himself the chief of all sinners and the least of the apostles. It's a long list of Biblical characters who considered themselves unworthy. They felt inadequate for the calling.

So it's somewhat surprising when Mary, a 13 year old girl, a virgin engaged to Joseph, reacts with simple trust when she is given the news that she will carry, within her womb, the son of the living God. She simply trusts God, and she accepts the role that she was given to play. She does her part within the plan of God's salvation.

Now, Mary had every possible reason to say no. Here she was, a young girl with her life in front of her, engaged to Joseph, and suddenly she is asked to put everything on the line. A young, single girl getting pregnant in these days is not a good thing. Back in Mary's day, it was a matter of life and death. Back in Mary's day, this could have cost her everything. She could have been stoned to death for this. At the very least, Joseph would have cut off the engagement, which he was prepared to do had God not intervened with an angelic visit. Mary would have been disgraced, cut off and alone, and that was in the best of circumstances.
And yet, she had such trust in God that she said yes. She accepted God's call upon her life, and the world, the entire history of the world, is better because of it.
Now, I believe that if Mary had said No, God wouldn't have just given up. God would have found another way to bring salvation into the world. It all didn't depend on Mary. But, because of her willingness to serve God in the manner in which she was invited, human history is different.

Now, we all would like to serve as faithfully as Mary, right? We'd all like to be able to completely trust God with our hearts and lives. We'd all love to be able to turn to God and follow his call into whatever he has in store for us.

The first thing I want to say is this: We all don't have to serve exactly like Mary did. We get the idea into our heads that each and every one of our walks of discipleship should look the same. We watch how one person serves the Lord and we convince ourselves that we need to do the same thing. We feel like we don't measure up because our life looks different than someone else's. Let me be very clear: we are all called in different ways to serve with different gifts. It's all for the same purpose, but we don't have to compare our lives. We can compare our attitudes or our willingness to serve, but our tasks are different.
I, for example, am not called to give birth to the Savior of the world. Mary was, and she did it very, very well. I'm not even called to give birth to anything. Rachel has done that twice, and she's done it much, much better than I could have. She's told me that since she has carried the first two babies, I am supposed to carry the next two, but we all can admit that I'm way, way too much of a wimp for that.
So since I can't give birth, am I less of a disciple than Mary? No. I have my own gifts and callings. But the pattern of discipleship is the same, and often, so is our response. I want to wander through this passage and talk about the rhythm and pattern of call and resistance.

First of all, God loves you. God believes that you are special. He has affection in his eyes for you. This is so, so important for us all to hear, but we struggle against this. When the angel shows up and tells Mary that God has found favor with her, she is troubled by this and tries to figure it out. She gets wrapped up trying to hear what it means rather than just accepting it.
We tend to do this, too. God loves you. God died on the cross for you, and if you had been the only person in the entire world, God still would have done so. God didn't die for someone really special and get you thrown into the mix, like a player-to-be-named later in a trade. No—you are special and treasured by God.
Often, we think of all the reasons God shouldn't love us. We think of how unworthy we are. We wonder why God loves us.
Stop. Stop with all the obstacles, with all the excuses, with all the hesitations. God loves you. If we can learn to accept that for what it is, it will radically change our hearts. I promise you that.

Next, the angel moves on to the details. God is calling Mary to a very special role—she is going to give birth to a Savior.
Mary's first question is to ask how this can be, since she is still a virgin.
It's a fair question. In her heart, she knows how the world works. She doesn't see how God will overcome such an obstacle. She forgets all the amazing things God has done in the past.
Often, when we're called into a certain mode of discipleship, we spend time figuring out all the reasons why we can't do it. We wonder how God will use us, and if we're really prepared for the job. We start to believe that we are not good enough, not equipped, and generally unworthy for the task. We wonder why God doesn't send someone else. We question our self-worth.
Friends, throughout human history, God has been using unworthy people to do amazing things. God chose Moses to free his people, God chose David to be king, God chose Peter to lead the church. None of them were qualified. None of them were ready. All of them were used for amazing things. God wants to use you, too, but if you're too busy looking at yourself and not busy enough looking at God, all you'll come up with are reasons why God's plan will never work. God exists outside of time and space, and God created time and space, so when God calls you into something, trust in him to be able to bring it to completion. God didn't call you into a life of discipleship to see you get overwhelmed and killed because you don't have the gifts—God will give you what you need, often miraculously. Stop worrying about yourself and focus on God.

Finally, when God assures Mary that things will be handled supernaturally, Mary assents. She tells God that she is a servant and will submit to his will. It's the same prayer Jesus prayed in the Garden, and it's the same prayer we each need to pray today. To trust fully in God's will, to let our own questions and hesitations get lost in the background noise so that our hearts will worship and our lives will submit to Christ, no matter what Christ wants us to do. Friends, believe the Good News—Christ wants to use you to change the world, and while you may not feel worthy of that, you don't have to worry about yourself—you have been called by name, bought with a price, redeemed by the blood of Christ and prepared for eternal life. God can and will use you for miraculous purposes if you trust him enough to submit to his Lordship in all of life.


Let us pray

Thursday, December 5, 2013

December 5 New Hope E-News

Announcements

Cantata-- This Sunday!

Service of Healing & Wholeness-- For all who struggle with any and all of Christmas, we hold this service yearly as a place to come and let the hope of Christ and the love of the community surround us. December 22 @ 6pm.

Candlelight Christmas Eve Service of Lessons & Carols-- December 24, 7 pm.


Community Kitchen Spot
There are a lot of hungry and homeless children of God and the community needs some help feeding them. If you would like to help out, please bring the following items to church this Sunday & put them on the bookshelf.
Plastic Forks, Knives, Spoons
Dinner Napkins
Heavy Duty Sectional Dinner Plates
Dessert Plates


New Hope News

Toy Drop Thank You-- Thank you for all your generosity for the toy drop! (The guy from the Forgotten Child Fund came and picked up the toys today, and he said we had way more toys than any other place he had visited. Hope you are proud of the congregation's giving!)


Sunday SchoolWe push forward into Matthew 8 this coming Sunday.



Pray For:
Lynn Meyer—please pray for Roger and Lynn as the eternal life into which she was baptized draws near. While death has been defeated and the veil separating us from God has been torn in two, there is still much pain and many tears as we grieve the wounds that death punches into our hearts and minds.

Norma Capon
e—please pray for her this Friday as she undergoes treatment.

Christine Dyer

For Jessica and so many others wrestling with cancer

For each and every individual who waits in a hospital bed. Some wait anxiously for doctors to bring back reports. Some wait longingly for visitors. Some wait to leave, bored and confused as the days run together. Some wait for death. In each and every room, there is a child made in the image of God, born of two parents, filled with hopes and dreams and joys and fears. Each and every one of them matters to God.


Links







Keith's Random Thoughts

Cancer sucks.
Death sucks.

Frankly, we have too much of both. Sickness & death tear at the fabric of our lives, tearing us in pieces and ripping us apart, bringing chaos to the creation that God created, ordered and called 'Good'. It wasn't supposed to be like this.
We introduced this sin to the world. God called us to live a certain way, and we selfishly chose disobedience, and the consequences of that choice brought sickness, death and all sorts of brokenness into the world. All of our sin has brought death to all of us. Humanity, all of us, are broken.
What we need, even more than physical healing, is a Savior. I always pray for physical healing, for myself and for others. I pray that the Great Physician would do a miracle in the body of the one that is suffering, that disease and sickness might be conquered & health might be restored. But even if we are physically healed, it only delays the inevitable. We will get sick again. We all die.
What we truly need is someone to deliver us from the bondage of sin and death. What we need is someone who will break the shackles of death, so that we will be restored to life, so that we will be in a state where death and disease and chaos cannot touch us.
This is exactly what Christ has done. Christ doesn't physically heal all of us, just as he didn't heal everyone in the Gospels, but he offers us something greater, something deeper—liberation, and the hope that, one day, we will be free from death. One day, we will live in a place where there is no thought of disease. Our resurrection bodies will be good, and they will stay that way.
Forever.

So death still sucks. But fortunately, we can place our trust in One who delivers us through death into life.






Text for this Sunday, December 15
Luke 1:26-38 (ESV)

26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” 29 But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. 30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”

35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. 36 And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.


New Hope on Facebook & Twitter
New Hope on iTunes

Monday, December 2, 2013

December Letter

Friends in Christ,

Can you imagine Joseph, Mary's willing husband, hunched over a monitor telling Mary when she's about to have a contraction? Can you imagine Mary trying to decide whether to let the nurses take the Son of God into the nursery at night so she can get some sleep? Can you imagine the look on Jesus' face when they slip the anti-theft device on his ankle?
It's hard for us to imagine what that scene in the stable was like so many years ago. We speculate on the surroundings and who was there, but the reality is that we simply don't know. We have the Gospel accounts, but anyone who claims to know for certain more than that has seen better scholarship than I have.
The actual event happened years ago, but the cosmic ramifications still reverberate in our hearts and lives today. Almighty God taking on human flesh and dwelling in our midst matters more than we can begin to understand. Not only do we have consolation in knowing that God understands what it feels like to be human, but also we can have hope for the future because of the sinless life and perfect sacrifice that Jesus Christ offered.
Christmas changed everything, and each Christmas is a chance for us to remember the perfect gift that we have been given. Each Christmas is a chance for us to look forward in hope, to peer boldly beyond the horizon of today, through the veil of death and into the realm of the eternal, where God sits upon his throne and beckons us closer. Each Christmas is a chance to look around at the present, to celebrate our blessings and examine our shortcomings, working to make our lives a pleasing offering to God.
As we celebrate Christmas, may we celebrate the strength and wisdom of God that came down to earth in the form of a child, and may we give thanks that God is a God of redemption, peace, hope, joy and love.
In Christ,

Keith